How to request variables from the server

Unity Engine
1

Yep, another noob networking question.

My clients pass data to the server via the command attribute, and is stored on a gameobject that is only on the server. What I want to do is have the server return a variable, such as a Color, transform, string, GameObject, etc, down to the client (just one client, not all of them) whenever the client requests it. I have tried clientRPC, however, as far as I know, clientRPC methods cannot return variables. I have looked into server messages, but that looks a bit messy to be the only way to do this.

For example, I store the positions and teams of the player on the server gameobject. When a client joins, it sends a request to the server to add it to a team, and the server adds it to a team in a playerlist gameobject. Now, I want to be able to have the client auto aim towards the closest player that is not on their team. So, the client needs to request information (the transform of a random player on another team) from the server gameobject. Please note that I will not need to request the information every update, so there won’t be too many server calls.

2

Bump. I got no further.

3

http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/UNetActions.html

ClientRPC is not for returning variable, but you can give it a parameter for your client object.

With NetworkMessage you can pass anykind of data in it
(RPC & commands are restricted to simple types like float/int/string. With messages you can send advanced structs/classes).
It’s not that messy (i guess).
Or syncvar.

But since you’re asking this kind of questions, is you game type fast ? Is your server authoritative ? How will you handle lag, and security ? You need to ask yourself these questions before because your game architecture depends of this.